Delirium
by Neon Dandelion
Summary: In which Fire Lord Azula is haunted by a very persistent ghost. Azula x Ty Lee AU.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** This is an unconventional redemption story. It focuses 100 percent on character development and so has little when it comes to a plot beyond Azula redeeming herself. It's a traditional Fire-Nation-Wins AU inspired by Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six from Battlestar Galactica. I kind of see Tyzula in them and I've made a lot of BSG jokes in Liar in a Little Plaid Skirt. It's character-driven and focuses on Azula Redemption. There's some PG-13 sexual content, as a forewarning. That's all, I think.

* * *

 ** _Delirium_**

* * *

"You don't know how beautiful you look in that crown," says Ty Lee.

Azula looks up and then looks away. Not real, not real, not real.

Ty Lee says, "You don't even say _go away_ anymore. I guess that's good. Do you really want me to go away?"

Not real, not real, not real. Azula does not make eye contact.

Ty Lee walks to her and Azula tries not to move. Maybe if she ignores it, it will go away. But no luck; Ty Lee has placed herself on Azula's lap, almost straddling her, a position that should be uncomfortable but is not. Hot lips touch Azula's neck.

No, no, no. She is gone. Ty Lee is gone and Ty Lee betrayed her so she deserved what she got.

Those hot lips press against her own and she swallows. She wants to sink into it, wants to enjoy it, but she cannot bear the pain. Ty Lee haunts her because she wants to _hurt_ her. Azula knows that despite gentle hands running up her waist, pushing her dress up, up, up.

Ty Lee pulls her mouth away from Azula's skin. "I think that there are ways I could be real. I mean, I think I _am_ real. Don't you think you're real?"

"Of course I do. But you're the product of my broken mind. I'm not stupid," Azula whispers. Yet, she cannot help but briefly surrender to the touch.

And then she jumps, because Ty Lee is gone and Counselor Kameko is bowing in front of her. This is bad; she wonders if Kameko saw that moment in which Azula pretended that fantasy was reality.

"Did I startle you? I apologize," Counselor Kameko says.

Azula swallows. "No. What is it you need?"

"The court is waiting for you, is all." Kameko blushes.

Fire Lord Azula has no idea why.

She stands and is grateful that she is alone.

* * *

The next morning, Azula wakes to a disapproving sound and a girlish voice.

Azula manages not to sigh. She does not feel any remorse about the current situation, and she has no clue why anyone – much less her own mind – would expect her to have regrets.

The Fire Lord is currently in bed with a very attractive woman who she does not know the name of, nor does she care. The girl sitting across from the bed is incredibly, incredibly unwelcome.

Fire Lord Azula weighs her options. The phantasm making sad baby animal faces at her is too much to ignore. She turns to the girl and orders, "Get out."

"What?" she first asks, but she complies without Azula needing to repeat herself.

Azula stands and finds the rest of her clothes. She hopes her ghost vanishes.

But, "Again, really?" Ty Lee asks. She pouts and it is almost cute. But, mostly, it is frustrating.

"Is this my conscience attempting to make me feel guilty? Is that some kind of emotion my brain just doesn't know how to process?" Azula says bitterly as she winnows through outfits. She _has people_ to do this for her, but her hallucination is not making that easy.

"No. I don't think you could feel guilty if you tried," Ty Lee says, commenting as if that were a compliment. Azula decides to take it as one. "I think you're running from this way too hard."

"You should be the one running." Azula feels weak when she says that.

"You are my destiny," Ty Lee says. Azula thinks she is mocking her. "How could I give that up? You're lucky to have me. It would be worse if I was gone."

"It wouldn't," Azula argues. And then she adds the thought, "Why am I talking to you?"

Ty Lee giggles. "Because I'm basically real and stuff."

"No, you're not."

"Well, then you must be really crazy to be talking to nothing."

"I must be."

* * *

Azula is particularly brutal and tyrannical today. She cannot help it after her one night stand gone wrong. Everyone disturbing her seems beneath her concern. But she is undisturbed by visions. At least, for a few hours.

Yawning. Ty Lee yawns. "It's so _bleak_. Your life is boring."

Before she considers answering, military minds trickle in. Thank the spirits.

"We have the scout information on Iroh's forces," says War Minister Hulin. "He's expanding more quickly than we anticipated."

"There's never good news, is there?" Azula comments. Everyone seems too afraid to answer.

"But all he has is a mobile set of untrained soldiers. He's claiming land that's burnt and mostly deserted anyway," War Minister Hulin protests.

"He's claiming land. And training those soldiers as we speak. I think that you are too _cozy_ with our solitary victory. We already had the Earth Kingdom before the comet. We have _less of it_ now," Azula purrs. "Do not patronize me."

"We should go over what forces we can offer the Phoenix King, then…"

* * *

Azula thinks she has escaped scrutiny, but she certainly has not.

When she leaves the lengthy meeting, she finds someone waiting for her. Not this. He cannot _do_ this to her. She already is giving him anything he wants, like those soldiers from the homeland, like anything he requests from afar.

She does not deserve this.

But she is polite, of course.

"Father, I wasn't prepared for your arrival. I will have lodgings put together for you. Do you want a formal greeting or –"

Ozai says, "None of that. I came unannounced intentionally."

"To test me?"

"No. You're a very selfish girl," he says. "I am too. I came so that you wouldn't sacrifice your work for the homeland to be ready for me."

"How kind," Azula replies. Her heart skips when she realizes how insincere she sounds.

"I will speak to you in the morning. I have arrangements to speak with a variety of people."

He is gone before she can even properly greet him. What a magnificent daddy.

An unexpected and unwanted voice comments, "Your eyes are… what's that word for super empty?"

"Vacant?" Azula breathes.

"Yes!" Ty Lee cheers, walking and touching Azula's hip. She pivots to stand in front of the princess.

She smells like her perfume. Smell comes with memories. Azula tries to tell herself that.

Ty Lee moves to kiss her and Azula turns her face. But she does feel hot lips on her cheekbone. She will not give in, even if that touch shocks her like a bolt of lightning. Even if Ty Lee has taken the liberty to press herself against the Fire Lord.

Azula has yet to give in. She is not sleeping with a hallucination. That would be absurd.

Well, she has to admit, not _that_ absurd.

She would prefer this to be an elaborate sexual fantasy over something more disturbing.

"What's wrong?"

"I refuse to be in love with a corpse."

Ty Lee pulls away at the speed of lightning. The anger on her face is something that Azula has never seen before. It makes her heart pound and she wonders if she will need to strike.

"That's your own fault, isn't it?" Ty Lee shrieks. "Or have you forgotten?"

"I never will," Azula whispers.

Ty Lee continues to glare.

"Maybe that answers some of your questions."


	2. Chapter 2

"What do you expect from him?" Ty Lee snaps with her arms crossed. "To be cuddled and hugged and told you're his Princess of the Universe?"

Azula does not need this. She is simply trying to have her tea and stare at trees and fire fountains. Her father's presence is disturbing, because he must want something. He is not the type of person to go out of his way in order to _check up_ on Azula.

"I expect him to pretend he would do that," Azula whispers.

Ty Lee sits down across from her at the lonely stone table. The Pai Sho markings have been rubbed away, but Azula can still faintly see them.

"Did he ever?" Ty Lee inquires. Her voice is so _sweet_. Azula loathes her.

"Yes. When I was little and cute and he still needed me," Azula says quietly. She then sighs. "He used to tell me that the world would belong to me one day and I would reign over it. That I would be the best empress anyone had ever known. I think he has changed his mind."

"I still believe you can," Ty Lee chimes.

Azula rolls her eyes and looks away. When she looks back up, the girl who was livid moments ago is still looking sweetly at her like there is nothing so beautiful on this Earth as Fire Lord Azula.

Ty Lee would not look at her like that if she were really here.

The last thing Ty Lee said to her was, _"You're not Azula. I love Azula, not Fire Lord Azula."_

It was not pleasant to hear.

* * *

In the morning, Azula can feel her. She looks and feels human – not like a memory. But she _is_ a memory. Azula knows that. Azula knows that. The Fire Lord does not believe in ghosts, but if this were a ghost, she would be seeking revenge. That would be what the real Ty Lee would want. Azula simply imagines her as sexy and adoring.

Maybe Ty Lee _is_ seeking revenge. Maybe the warm lips on her ivory skin that never seem to fade away are supposed to prevent her from forgetting her crimes. Not crimes; she was justified in her actions. Ty Lee brought it on herself.

An imagination can produce the… sensations, can't it? It is not uncommon for a dream to heat someone's thighs.

"I love you. Tell me you love me," whispers a voice beside Azula in her sun-drenched bedroom. This is how she wakes; this is how she falls asleep. It does not matter how many other girls Azula digs her claws into and drags into her bed – she will always be haunted by one she never even slept with in reality.

Azula slept alone tonight. She was dreaming of the sex.

That is what logic tells her.

All the same, 'No,' she mouths. She does not want to be aloud to a hallucination, but she needs to say it.

"You're awful," Ty Lee says before giggling. _Giggling_. "But I know you love me. That's the only reason I'm here. If you stop loving me, I'll stop bothering you. It's that simple."

Azula has realized over time that this is a slow, torturous murder by kindness. And Ty Lee seems to be succeeding at it.

Fire Lord Azula has a headache, she notes as she leaves her bed, the apparition still between her red silk sheets. It seems she always is in pain somewhere in her body. She dresses and is not disturbed by her daydream. She walks outside and runs into one of the handmaidens she does not bother knowing.

The girl bows. "Good morning, your highness."

Azula might have slept with her once.

She doesn't remember.

The only woman in her life is dead.

* * *

That afternoon, Azula presides over a war meeting with her faher.

"You're good at war," Ozai says as the others leave them in the throne room.

"Thank you, father." She hesitates about the comment that comes to mind. It could possibly offend him. But, then again, she thinks she does not care anymore. "It's all I know."

He does not react one way or another to her honesty.

"I have a gift for you," he says and she is certain it comes with countless strings attached. "No… it's more of a reward. I will give you what you already claimed. I will give you Ba Sing Se."

Azula does not know how to react, but she does manage to ask, "If I do what?"

He smirks.

"You're so paranoid. I intend to transform it from city to fortress. The enemy is too close to it. They attach trade routes only miles away from the outer wall," he explains.

"There's a very strong resistance in there," Azula says.

"Are you frightened of angry peasants?" Ozai growls.

"I'm frightened of some angry soldiers and their organized militia. I've been tossing countless soldiers at your city for a long time, only to lose them." She sees no change in his demeanor. Maybe he does not care if she lives or dies. "I'm your only heir. Do you want me dead?"

He straightens his posture, making her feel very small. "I want you to prove you're _worthy_ of being my heir. I could have another, and you know that. But you are my daughter, and I will not abandon you."

"Well, that's nice to hear. I assume you want Caldera in exchange?" Azula shrinks even further, because she knows she will surrender her city by nightfall.

And in her ear, breath against her skin, "You aren't going to fight for your people and your country? You want your dad to be happy at the price of your honor and reign?"

Azula steels herself. A hand is on her arm and she is certain she is flushed in front of the expectant Phoenix King.

"May I consider your request, father, or is it an order," Azula chokes out.

He laughs. Ty Lee laughs. She was serious.

"Yes, you can think about it," he says. Azula reads between the lines and can tell that she does not have much of a choice.

* * *

After her meeting with her father, Azula is questioned and pestered by a ghost.

"Why don't you wanna go? I wanna go. I'd love to see Ba Sing Se again," Ty Lee says sweetly. She sits on the throne as if that is allowed. Azula sits on a war room table and looks up at someone beneath her.

"I don't want to go because I'll get killed."

"You're stronger than this. Really. You're really hard to kill and I bet you could even make people there _like_ you. You're easier to like than Ozai because you're way prettier than him," Ty Lee gushes.

Azula stares at her for a moment and again realizes she is talking to herself.

"Yes. I obviously know that. But I like Caldera and I like ruling it," Azula says.

"You used to want the whole world. He's offering it to you and you should take it," Ty Lee says. She kicks her legs back and forth like a child sitting on the throne.

Azula did that once as a child. A long time ago. Before she realized politics were more complicated than the concept of birthright and killing all who oppose you.

"I have no choice."

"Yes, you do. You're Fire Lord. You achieved all your dreams and now you can achieve more."

"Achieving my dreams has never been pleasant," Azula says softly. "I'm going to see Zuko. He's easier to talk at than you."

"Of course, because I'm not real," Ty Lee says teasingly. She even smiles that cute, mischievous smile.

"Stop saying that."

"Stop thinking that and I'll stop saying it."

"I hate you."

"I love you too, princess!"

Azula freezes. "I'm not a princess anymore."

"I forgot. I guess it was the groveling to your father you just did." Ty Lee shrugs and grins. "If you talked to him like a force to be reckoned with and not his pretty, pretty princess, he'd take you more seriously."

"I hate you," Azula mutters.

She lights the flames of the throne and the apparition vanishes.


	3. Chapter 3

Azula wakes from nightmares of Ba Sing Se.

Her haunting, her haunting of a long lost love used to be enticing. Azula had no desire to rid herself of the girl she could touch and taste but was not real at the end of the day. None of it was scary, save for wondering just why the hallucination was so persistent yet unpredictable.

Now, however, she fears the vision of Ty Lee.

How could she not?

Ty Lee has become much more frightening.

Father has not become any less frightening.

So, nightmares are reprieve from a scary world. She dreamt that she and Ty Lee were in the Earth Kingdom Palace again, but it was made solely of glass. She could see the walls that crumbled endlessly like waterfalls in the distance. She and Ty Lee kissed, but only for a fleeting second; the glass palace shattered around them before they could finish. The sharp shards pierced their skin and they silently bled to death side by side.

Azula wakes from nightmares of Ba Sing Se and feels someone curled like a cat at the foot of her be. When she sits up, she sees how perfect the mirage is. Ty Lee's braid is always impeccable, her eyes glisten in any lighting, and she looks like a fantasy.

Not real, not real.

It is impossible.

"Did you sleep well?" Ty Lee asks as she sits up. She yawns and stretches melodramatically, prompting Azula to roll her eyes. "I did."

"How good for you," Azula snarls as she tosses off her blankets and rises to dress herself.

"You had a nightmare," Ty Lee observes.

"Of course I did. I have nightmares every night," Azula says sharply, roughly removing her nightclothes.

"Are you still scared of your dad?" Ty Lee asks.

"No," Azula snaps. She turns to face her pet ghost. "Are you still scared of me?"

"No…" Ty Lee hesitates. "But I _know_ that you're scared of me."

Azula lingers on that statement; she does not know whether or not she should respond. She figures Ty Lee is not real and so it does not matter.

"Yes. I am," Azula admits. "But only because I fear myself."

She looks at how the sunrise illuminates Ty Lee as if she were as corporeal as she seems. It feels _wrong_. The heat of the morning feels _wrong_. Azula thinks she belongs in this world, under this sun, as much as Ty Lee does.

"Do you love me as much as you love yourself?" Ty Lee asks innocently. It is anything but innocuous, however. It sounds dark no matter how sweetly Ty Lee speaks.

"I have no idea." Azula turns away.

Ty Lee vanishes.

Of course she does, because Azula is insane and she knows that she is insane. Her father does not fully comprehend the extent of it, and she would like to keep it that way. Unfortunately, she thinks his arrival and his request might break her right in front of is eyes.

Azula does not have to walk very far to run into her father. He sits there, not quite waiting for her, but not quite doing anything else either. She does not get a decent read on him. Her emotions cloud her perception too much.

She knows he is very soon to give an order for her to go to Ba Sing Se. She could not refuse that by the law of the world.

"Did you sleep?" Azula asks, walking to stand in front of him. His expression shows no concern. She thinks he does not notice that anything is amiss; his emotions cloud his perception too.

"Not well, but you look worse," he replies offhandedly.

"I am concerned about many things. The rebels and the fact that the only two living members of our family – aside from us – are at the forefront of that rebellion. Anyone can betray anyone at any moment, after all." Azula blinks away a poisonous memory.

But the girlish voice behind her will not let her forget it. "They really can. I hear that it can make you completely crazy for years. And apparently make you fuck any girl who shows the slightest interest in you."

Ozai does not hear that.

Azula does.

That bitter fact gives her chills.

"I have my own concerns."

"Are they similar to mine."

"Yes."

"I would never betray you and I will always be loyal to you."

"It is mutual," says her father.

For good measure, she kisses him on the lips, lingering for the four heartbeats that she can stomach. She steps back and studies his face. Nothing.

He says, "Our shared concerns could be remedied by the plans I have. You seem unwilling to partake in them, because you are comfortable on the throne here and will not take responsibility for a city that is truly yours."

"I concerned it for the good of the Fire Nation. It belongs to all of us." That does not work. "It belongs to you."

"I am not running from my problems by making this simple requests. I have plans to silence any attempts at discord in my harmonious empire. I need what I ask from you."

"Why?" Azula demands. She realizes how inappropriate her tone is and wonders if she should kneel or speak or…

And the voice behind her interrupts her panic. "He won't ever tell you. But you're gonna do everything he says. _Everything_ , right?"

"What are you looking at?" snaps Ozai and she snaps to attention.

"Nothing, father." Azula is not sure if she is lying or not.

"We will discuss my strategy when I think it is appropriate. Until then you will do as you should for the good of the Fire Nation." His last few words blatantly mock her. She would execute anyone else who spoke to her that way on the spot. The only other person who dares to mock or challenge the Fire Lord has already been executed, but she seems to want to stick around.

"I am…" Azula licks her lips. "I don't want to walk into that deathtrap we call a city."

"I have done well there. I'm unscathed, aren't I?" He takes her hand very slowly. Then the other. She feels like a child. "I wouldn't ever put you in harms way, seeing as I don't have any other viable heir." He hesitates before the next part. "And you are the only person I have left in this world. I won't have you leave me."

"Then I won't go to Ba Sing Se."

"Yes, you will," he says confidently, squeezing her hands. "Because I will lock you up in your favorite prison if you disobey the orders from the Phoenix King."

"I am your child."

"So was Zuko," Ozai growls. His words before do not matter, if they do not get him what he wants. She is the same way, but that does not make it hurt any less.

The voice behind her sys, "But you're so much prettier than Zuko!"

"I don't need both of you doing this to…" Azula suddenly realizes that she is in reality and Ty Lee is not real.

"Both of who?"

"You and… and Zuko. He let me believe he had changed and I was a foolish little girl who thought he would make us a family again. I don't want you to leave me so easily." He believes every murky word, because it is what he wants to hear.

"I won't."

Azula glances over her shoulder and sees Ty Lee smiling brightly. Is it funny to her? Does she really want revenge for what Azula did to her?

If Azula were Ty Lee, she would want vengeance.

She does not have time to study the smile, because father slides his grip from her hands to her wrists and forcibly turns her to face him.

"Stop staring at shadows," he demands. "Are you loyal to me or not?"

"Of course. As much as you are to me." She bats her eyelashes. He does not question her loyalty; he just wants to frighten her.

"Prove it," he says, so casually. He draws her towards him.

Ty Lee is long gone.

Azula is alone in the Universe.

* * *

Azula's loneliness does not last long. She wanted solitude and had a bath drawn for her before kicking out her slaves. She has been in it for some time now, keeping it too hot to tell how many heartbeats have passed.

She will go to Ba Sing Se.

Azula feels lips near her ear and she flinches, splashing water all over the floor.

"Don't do that," she snaps at Ty Lee.

Her apparition giggles. "Oh come on. I'm sorry I left you. I hope you had fun without me."

Azula tries to ignore her.

That never works.

She feels the lips close to her neck again.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Ty Lee whispers like a girl at a sleepover about to tell a pathetic campfire tale.

"No," Azula replies icily.

Ty Lee takes a deep breath. When she exhales, Azula can feel the heat on her wet skin.

And Ty Lee whispers, "I do."


	4. Chapter 4

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Azula asks her father the night before she will depart.

It does not sound nearly as terrifying coming out of her mouth, and most things increase in formidability when she says them. Her father stares at her for a moment, and she does not blame him.

"Are you afraid of ghosts at your age? I might not be surprised, given the… state I found you in," he replies, and she cannot tell if he is mocking her or not.

She cannot tell with him, but he always can tell with her. She cannot best him, but he can always best her. There is exactly one person in this world who can make Azula kneel and it is him. It is difficult not to dislike that situation.

"Not necessarily. It's just a question," Azula says and her faux innocence _does_ win him over.

The only way Azula can use him is by telling him exactly what he wants to hear, and pretending to be exactly what he wants her to be.

"Possibly," he at last answers, even though she can tell he is skeptical of her intentions.

"Possibly?" she asks. She feels like a little girl again, but she doubts he is capable of seeing her as one of those.

"Yes. I wouldn't rule it out, given the things I have seen," he says.

Azula smirks at those words. She wonders how he would react to seeing the things she has.

"Am I old enough for you to stop reassuring me that I shouldn't be afraid?" Azula fidgets as she tries to play this off as a joke. She cannot have him thinking she is too crazy or too young or too much of both.

"It is much harder to tell a child that monsters are real than an adult," Ozai says.

It is probably the most profound thing he has ever said, but Azula, of course, keeps that observation to herself. She winds up not keeping her thoughts of her mother to herself, however, which is by far worse.

"Or it could be yelled at you by people who don't exist," she says without thinking.

It takes him a moment to understand; she can see it on his face. It makes her nervous, especially how much his expression darkens when he realizes it.

"That shouldn't have happened," he says, like he has so many times before. _We shouldn't have said those things in front of you_ , as if he can feel any more remorse than she can. "That's why certain people don't exist."

 _For my benefit_ , Azula thinks, because she cannot believe him.

Her mother is not gone because he loves Azula more. Her mother is not gone because Zuko disappoints—disappointed—him.

"I can think of many people who would love to return from ashes just to haunt me."

"Most people in your position do. You have to step on a lot of heads to reach the top."

Azula agrees, and allows him to change the subject.

* * *

The next morning, Azula sits on her bed and stares at the wall.

Her belongings are in the process of being packed at this moment. Her fate is sealed and she had no say in it. Her actions in the war were worthless.

"Did you have nightmares again?" her ghost asks.

"You would know. You're either a hallucination or a supernatural being and I refuse to answer any petty questions like that."

"It's _conversation_. I could tell you about my dreams, if that's better."

"I repeat that you are either a hallucination or a supernatural being and I doubt you have dreams. And even if you were you, your dreams were never worth hearing about. No one's dreams are, for that matter. I do not think I have ever enjoyed hearing about someone's dream."

"What if it was about you?"

"Well, that would either be far too uncomfortable to hear about or slightly less dull."

"You did have nightmares," Ty Lee chimes, as if she just solved an impossible math equation.

"So, you admit to being in my head?" Azula knows she will get nowhere with that but says it anyway.

Ty Lee shrugs with a glint in her eyes that is too real. Maybe Azula is progressively losing it even more.

"No," her ghost says, "it's like a fifty-fifty chance and I'm going for the more likely one. It's kind of like a ninety-ten chance with you."

"That estimate sounds far too generous." Azula silently sighs and lies down on her bed. She feels dizzy from such slight movement. "I don't think I have ever had a good dream in my entire life. I have nightmares every night and I always have."

"I never knew that." Ty Lee joins her on the bed. It moves with her weight. Azula will never understand the little things like that. "It's super depressing."

"I know."

Azula did have a notable nightmare last night. It seems so simple and ridiculous when she reflects upon it, but when she woke up she was even more shaken than usual. She was trying to untie a knot but it was tied too tight.

She does not know why it was so distressing.

"Okay, so we're going to wait in silence then? Yes. I guess that's a yes then."

It is.

* * *

Azula has to stifle a scream when she sees a silhouette in her cabin on the ship.

"You can't run from me that easily," her ghost says. When she emerges into the light, she is smiling at the Fire Lord. "I did always run faster than you in the first place but this is more like metaphorical running, so I don't know if that's relevant at all."

"It isn't," Azula snaps. She has no patience for this anymore.

"Anyway, at least you have me. It would be so boring there without me, right? It's boring everywhere without me. Your life is pretty boring. Like your nightmares about knots. Who has dreams about _knots_?"

"People who tie other people to stakes in order to burn them alive."

"Ouch. You're like a constant downer, huh?"

"Something like that. You can leave and never come back, if I bore you so much."

"I would've left a really long time ago if I _could_. Maybe around the time you started sleeping with other girls in front of me but I can think of other times too. You're not a really fun person to haunt."

"I try."

"I'm sorry about your father."

"About what aspect of my father? That is a very broad statement." Azula had to correct herself as soon as her tired mind realized what she had said. "I love my father, and I know he always does what is right for me, even if I do not see it clearly at the time."

Ty Lee's face is screwed up in concern and Azula has never seen a worse expression on someone's face. She does not like pity and she does not like interference.

Her ghost is far better when she feels human and Azula knows that because her lips and hands are so real. Not real, but real enough to wake up in the morning and feel like someone alive was in her bed and had left. Not vanished, just left before Azula woke up.

"I'm sorry about how awful he is, and I'm sorry that you don't notice that."

"You do not know the intricacies of my family, and you do not know me."

"I know you. I know you better than anybody else ever did."

"Well, that is not a grand accomplishment. I need a drink."

Azula stands, exits the room, and again tries to escape her ghost.

But when she runs from Ty Lee, she always has to stop and catch her breath.

* * *

Azula stands at the bow of the ship and gazes at the horizon.

It is empty and hazy. She does not look forward to the moment when she can see the former Earth Kingdom from here. Maybe it would be better just to…

"Stop climbing that. You're going to hurt yourself."

"That's exactly the point," Azula snaps out of the corner of her mouth. People are on this ship, people who could see her talking to someone they cannot see. Someone who Azula should not see.

"I don't want you to do that."

"You do not make decisions about my life."

"I know, but I don't think you want to do that either. Why are you so afraid of Ba Sing Se anyway?"

"I'm _not_. I don't know why you keep insisting that I am."

"Because you are. There's no other reason I can think of that would make you want to jump off of a ship and drown."

"Fine. If you want to think that, you can," Azula says, sliding down from her position and leaning her back against the metal. The sea breeze feels colder now.

"I'm not as mad as I was the other day," Ty Lee says. Shame is in her voice.

Azula does not care if she feels bad about it or not. "Your emotions have nothing to do with my life choices. I do not care about your feelings nor do I want to hear about them right now. Or ever."

"Okay."

She vanishes into thin air and Azula is left alone with the cold ocean wind.

Ty Lee has never said she was leaving before, nor had she left at Azula's request.

Her ghost is changing, and Azula is coping with enough unwelcome change already.

Wonderful.


	5. Chapter 5

"You can't ignore me forever," says Ty Lee from across the room.

She sits down on the metal floor as Azula lies in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Azula wonders if she pretends to not see the apparition Ty Lee will go away. That would be very pleasant. Ty Lee begins humming and Azula fails her attempt.

"You are overconfident and I am tired of it. You should be very afraid of me," Azula states, and Ty Lee gives her a strange glance. Ty Lee begins to stare and Azula looks away from her.

"I guess that's why I'm dead. I'm not scared of you enough," Ty Lee says. She shrugs like that comment is meaningless. "I always have been, though. I still am."

Azula shakes her head.

"You have lost everything about you that I ever liked," Azula says, and she thinks she is being honest. Something makes her feel unsure about that, however.

"That's sad. I'd leave if I could," Ty Lee says. Azula thinks she might be lying.

"You seem to vanish on a regular basis," Azula snaps, tired of all of it. Tired of more than just the ghost sharing a room with her.

Ty Lee gazes at her, almost longingly, very close to longingly. Azula does not know what to make of the invasive stare. It would be flattering if Ty Lee did not give her such chills.

"You seem to do that too," Ty Lee replies. Azula glares with a small pout. "You do. You're not yourself. I'm not me either. I guess what we've been through has changed us."

"I can come and go as I please. I am Fire Lord and you are nothing," Azula snaps.

Ty Lee stands. Azula returns her eyes to the ceiling.

Ty Lee walks across the room. Azula tries not to look at her.

Ty Lee kneels on the mattress beside the Fire Lord. Azula turns to face her.

"You told me I was everything once," Ty Lee says, and Azula remembers that.

"I lied," honestly replies Azula. "I said what I had to say to make you love me."

"I'd have loved you no matter what you said." Ty Lee sits silently; Azula finds it relieving. "I'd have loved you no matter what you did. I'm still here, aren't I?"

Azula stops short of replying because the ship rocks. _Hard_. As if a rogue wave smashed into it. Azula sits up, ready to investigate, but a cold hand rests on her arm. The Fire Lord turns to Ty Lee, sharply inhaling. Her hand twitches to slap her before Azula remembers that she is not real.

The ship rocks again.

Azula hears thunder, which satisfies her curiosity.

It is just a storm.

* * *

Azula dreams about the ship sinking. She sinks beneath the water, slowly losing sight of daylight. It is not frightening to be suffocating; it feels tranquil. Azula is not scared for the first time in years as she releases her held breath. Before she can draw the water into her lungs, a very cold hand grabs hers and pulls her back to the surface. The sun blinds her, but she sees her rescuer.

Fire Lord Azula wakes up with a pounding heart. The ocean gnashes and splashes as thunder cracks the sky every few seconds.

"Are we sinking?" she whispers to the girl sleeping beside her.

"Unfortunately, no," Ty Lee says, closing her eyes.

"Do you remember dying?" Azula whispers, still half-asleep and unable to realize how foolish she sounds.

"Yes," Ty Lee says quietly.

The next thing Azula knows, she is waking up in an empty bed.

She does not hear the waves or the lightning, and so she sits up. Azula finds clothes, dresses herself, and climbs up to the deck of the ship.

The sun looks so eerily beautiful in the red sky. Mist hangs over the sea, but there is not a single cloud in sight.

Azula feels grateful that the sky has sated its anger.

* * *

Azula leans over the side of the ship, gazing out at the glittering blue water.

Her apparition returns. Of course. Azula cannot have five minutes to herself anymore. She wishes there were some insignificant girl around to make Ty Lee jealous enough to disappear for a few hours. That always works very well.

"You look so tired. You should go back to sleep." A cold hand brushes against her warm cheek. Azula refuses to lean into it, despite the deep, powerful instinct to do so.

"You do not tell me what to do," Azula whispers. She blinks and realizes that there are other people nearby. No one noticed. Good. Azula has enough of a reputation as a crazy, crazy dictator.

"Don't worry; I won't let anyone think you're insane. I don't think you're crazy," Ty Lee says, standing very close to the Fire Lord. "I don't think you're fragile either. Your father seems to."

"I know," Azula says. Thoughts of him make her feel sick. She loves him deeply and dearly with all of her heart, but he has caused her a good deal of pain.

He is a very entitled person.

Azula supposes that she is too.

* * *

"When's the last time you had real sleep?" asks Ty Lee as Azula lies awake for the second night in the row.

"Maybe when I was an infant," Azula says. Ty Lee laughs, but it was not a joke. "Sleep is beneath me. It is such a mortal vice."

"You need it," Ty Lee says, touching Azula's hand.

The Fire Lord does not move. She used to pull away, but now she does not feel like wasting the energy. Ty Lee is the most persistent and stubborn hallucination Azula has ever met.

"I need you to leave," Azula orders. Ty Lee just intertwines their fingers. Her hands burn; Azula's feel far too cold for a firebender's. Her hands are bone dry; Azula's are clammy.

"I'm yours. You chose to keep me, and you can't throw me out. I don't want you to throw me out. I still love you," Ty Lee whispers.

It strikes Azula in a way that statement has not before. The tone of Ty Lee's voice reminds Azula of a very old apparition. She sits up quickly and knocks Ty Lee's hand away from hers.

"I'm going for a walk," she snarls, her eyes sparkling with unadulterated rage. "If you _love_ me so much, you will not follow me."

Ty Lee obeys.


	6. Chapter 6

Ba Sing Se is deplorably grim. Azula thinks Caldera had more life and color, and she genuinely preferred it. No wonder her father got out of here so quickly. Now it is her burden to bear.

"You _are_ the one who conquered the city," says Ty Lee, tapping her fingers on the carriage window.

It makes sound. It makes sound and Azula has never been so confused by anything. She does not know why her dear ghost never goes away.

Azula says nothing. She just watches her subjects pass like a blur. They will not be happy to see her; she knows that much.

The tapping goes from the windowsill to her arm. She tries to ignore it until she no longer can.

"I don't believe in you. I have decided that I don't believe in you and so you don't exist," Azula snaps under her breath. She crosses her arms and turns her back to the ghost.

"Well, then I don't believe in you," Ty Lee says, the movement of her fingers ceasing but the warmth of her breath on Azula's skin continuing.

Azula hears her whimper and sighs. "Don't be that way. If you were real, you would obey me. The _real_ you always did."

Ty Lee squints for a moment. Azula thinks she may be _thinking_ about the question, which hallucinations do not do, but neither does Ty Lee, so the entire image before her eyes makes no sense.

"The real me obeyed you because I was scared. I mean, I wanted you to be happy because I loved you and everything, but I was more scared of you than in love with you. Maybe more in love with you. I don't know. I just know I was scared and I can't be scared anymore because there's nothing you can do to me that you haven't already," Ty Lee says, her words quick and squished together. Azula can barely follow them.

"You look scared right now," Azula whispers, relaxing her posture and turning to Ty Lee again. "Do I scare you even after death?"

Ty Lee gazes at her palms, silently affirming Azula's assumption.

She does not say another word on their ride to Phoenix Palace.

* * *

Azula brushes her hair in front of a mirror after a terrible day. Ty Lee did leave her alone, if that is some small consolation. She might be hated by everyone in this city, but she cannot stand hating herself the way she does when the ghost of her girlfriend shows up.

Ghost. She is a ghost, right? Azula knows she is crazy. She is not blind to her own madness, but she does not think Ty Lee is some device of her subconscious built to torture her. That would be too much.

"You're good at politics," Ty Lee says, sitting down behind Azula, like she always does.

Azula wonders if ghosts have reflections, because Ty Lee certainly does.

 _"_ _Do you believe in ghosts?"_

If monsters are real, ghosts are real, and both prove their existence by being reflected in this mirror, in this bedroom that they will likely share.

"Of course I am good at politics. I was literally born for it," Azula replies, trying not to react to Ty Lee's presence. Somehow, she always does. Her body tenses, she sweats slightly, a physical reaction she has felt only in the presence of her father.

Ty Lee does not deserve that kind of power. Yet, perhaps Azula gives it to her.

"You're going to do good. We're going to do good here," Ty Lee says. She sounds like herself and Azula hates that. When Ty Lee snaps at her or fights or anything else abnormal, Azula can reassure herself that this is not real.

"I can't love a ghost," Azula states, setting her hairbrush down on a stone table. Everything is made of rocks here, unlike at home. The palace may be bleak from time to time, but this place feels as cold and uninviting as the city around it.

"Maybe," Ty Lee says and Azula does not know if her apparition has more to say than that or not.

She does not seem to, because she lets Azula get undressed and slip into her bed. Ty Lee keeps sitting at the foot of it, like a pet. Perhaps she is on the same caliber as a pet, Azula decides. No, she always was. That is how Azula thought of her, right?

"Not that I loved you in the first place. If I loved you I wouldn't have done what I did to you," Azula purrs, sinking back and releasing the tension in her limbs. She has total control of this situation. "Did that seem like an act of love?"

Ty Lee purses her lips, thinking again. Today has been beyond weird for the princess.

"I think it was," Ty Lee at last says, sounding like she just solved a puzzle. "I think it was because you don't know how to love people."

"I _don't_ love people," Azula retorts, opening her eyes and sitting up. She sees that this is going to be a longer night than she had hoped.

"I don't think that's true, but maybe it's just because I loved you so much. I don't think anybody ever loved you the right way. I loved you but I didn't love _you_ and it was weird. I thought I really was perfect for you and you were perfect for me…" Ty Lee trails off and gazes at the wall. It has been hastily painted red, with chips to show for the rushed job.

"We could have lasted," Azula replies, as she has thought it many times before. It is difficult to avoid thinking about those possibilities when Ty Lee refuses to leave. "If you didn't screw it up. Maybe you think my retaliation was an act of love, but what you did to me showed that, yes, you are _horrible_ at loving me and probably never did."

" _Azula_ …" Ty Lee curls inward.

"You loved feeling special. What mattered to you was that I made you feel like you mattered, like you were better than everyone else because I wanted to sleep with you. We both are terrible people who have never _loved_ a soul," Azula says passionately, the fabric of her blankets wrapped in her closed fist.

"That's true," Ty Lee says without her newfound _thinking expression_. "You're always right."

She does not say it sarcastically. Azula knows it to be true, but she has fought with Ty Lee incessantly since she showed up one day with her lips inches from Azula's.

"If you are waiting for an apology, there will not be one. I am happy with my decision," Azula says, hoping that she is not lying. She does not know if she is or not, and that grey area makes her uneasy and uncomfortable.

"I don't expect you to apologize. You don't really do it," Ty Lee replies, smiling.

In the following silence, she crawls up the bed and rests her hands on Azula's knees.

Ty Lee kisses her and Azula leans in to what she knows is not real. The warm skin and warm breath and soft touch are imaginary, but Azula does not care. Why does it matter? Why would she ever choose reality over this brief thrill?

Azula lies back, seizing Ty Lee's arms to take her down with her.

Their noses almost touch. Their hips certainly do, and as Ty Lee shifts her weight, Azula feels her knee on the inside of her thigh. It makes her breath catch.

Azula closes her eyes and decides to believe in Ty Lee for just one night.

She can go back to not existing in the morning.

* * *

"Azula," whispers Ty Lee. The sun rises in the sky as Azula pries open her eyes. "Azula, there's something you should see."

Fire Lord Azula slowly sits up. "Yes?"

She wonders why Ty Lee is still here. Usually, she disappears, leaving Azula wondering if it was just a dream. Maybe it would be better if she was a dream.

"Please come see." Ty Lee takes Azula's hands and squeezes them.

Azula stands and quickly gets dressed. She spends a few moments on her appearance in the mirror and then follows Ty Lee through the halls of Phoenix Palace.

Ty Lee guides Azula down a set of stairs and into a dark hallway that Azula illuminates using her own fire. The walls are lined with doors. This is a dungeon of some form.

She walks down it, hearing slight noises coming from a sparse few. Someone better give her a list of prisoners and their offenses before the end of the day. No, before the end of the morning.

Ty Lee stands in front of one door. Azula waits for her to open it before she remembers that Ty Lee cannot do that.

Azula opens it and takes several swift steps backwards when she sees what is inside.

This cannot be real.


	7. Chapter 7

_"_ _I don't know," Azula whispers, knowing he will find her to be weak for saying it. "It seems, perhaps, perhaps it would be wiser to…"_

 _Ozai's expression silences her. He looks at her like he looks at Zuko and it makes her fingers tremble. She values him more than she values Ty Lee, doesn't she? Of course, she does._

 _"_ _You need to do this if you will ever be a decent leader. If you can't enforce your laws and right to reign, then you aren't fit to rule the Fire Nation. You aren't fit to rule a fishbowl," the Phoenix King says, which has a positive effect on his daughter._

 _She nods. "I am certain you are right," Azula adds to her nonverbal gesture._

 _He touches her face and she hides a sigh of relief. No, he does not think she is anything like Zuko. His lips grave against hers and she does not remember much after that._

 _But she remembers signing the order. But she remembers tossing and turning for a week. But she remembers watching the execution._

 _It is worth it, and it was their choice, and so she has every right to make this choice._

 _Doesn't she? Doesn't she?_

* * *

Azula glances over her shoulder towards Ty Lee and see that she has again been deserted at a vital moment. At first, neither the Fire Lord nor the prisoner say a word.

Finding her tongue, Azula speaks first: "It's you," she says, wishing she had more intelligent words. "It's you."

It is her brother, of all people.

She imagined Zuko had to be dead. Ozai would have killed him; he was hungry for that opportunity since the day Azula was born.

Maybe he _is_ dead. He has not gotten up or reacted to Azula barging into his prison cell. She walks inside, again glancing over her shoulder and wishing she had help.

Fire Lord Azula kneels beside her brother, noticing again how ragged he is. She touches his shoulder and taps her fingernails against his dirty skin. He does not move, so she sets two fingers on his neck and finds a pulse.

He is alive. Azula does not know if that is a good or bad thing.

Alive or not, he is clearly very sick, so Azula goes to find someone to fix that.

She wants to talk to him as soon as he is capable of speaking.

* * *

A pretty girl shows Azula the throne room. She bowed and introduced herself, but Azula has already forgotten her name, as it is not truly important. Azula has been alone all day since she saw Zuko and some form of company is better than none.

She asks questions about the renovations to the palace and enjoys the sound of someone else's voice. The girl has a very attractive voice, a bit gravelly yet high, and her answers are all adequate. Most of it involves metal, red dye and a very adamant Phoenix King.

"I mean, it _is_ a nice throne," offhandedly remarks Azula, running her fingers along its arm.

The pretty girl says nothing. Another pretty girl feels the need to make the comment, "Well, I mean, the one in the Fire Nation is kinda nicer but this one is amazing too."

"Well, yes, the one in the Fire Nation was better, but I find this one to be beyond satisfactory," Azula says to Ty Lee, but the girl seems to think it is directed at her. That is probably for the best.

"It's lovely," squeaks the scared girl and Azula sits down, staring at someone who she does not even remember the name of. She is nothing compared to the ghost hovering over Azula's shoulder.

Azula tries to clear her head. That is made impossible as Ty Lee sinks down to sit beside the throne. Fire Lord Azula does not know why she did not anticipate this.

"I would've looked really good as Fire Lady," Ty Lee says, and not for the first time.

Azula takes a deep breath, trying to remember that Ty Lee is not real. She cannot talk to a hallucination or a ghost; she has more important things to think about, like rebels or Zuko. Are those two things mutually exclusive?

"Will you leave?" Azula demands of either girl in the room.

One of them bows and exits. The predictable one, of course, not Ty Lee.

"You were talking to her, right?" Ty Lee asks, pointing with an innocent gleam in her eyes.

"I was talking to whoever was listening, and waiting for one or both of you to obey," Azula replies, shrinking slightly. The throne makes her looks tall and powerful, but she cannot help but feel small and powerless.

"I thought you were talking to her," Ty Lee says. Azula does not care if she believes her or not. "Do you think I'd look good as Fire Lady?"

"I think you are dead and therefore do not qualify for the position," Azula snaps. "Speaking of you being dead, how exactly did you lead me to my brother?"

"Well," says Ty Lee. "I asked you to follow me and then I walked to his cell."

If looks could kill, Ty Lee would be dead for the second time.

* * *

Ty Lee picks up Azula's discarded crown.

The Fire Lord has already readied herself to sleep, and she resents this diversion. It has been a long day and she has no word on progress with Zuko. She has debated the merits of sending a messenger-hawk to her father and decided against it. On top of that, she has had three meetings about the rebels and five audiences with citizens.

She does not have _time_ to indulge the fantasies of a dead woman.

"I'd be good royalty. I'd be great royalty. Remember when you said I'd be great royalty?" Ty Lee smiles wistfully.

Azula lies down on her bed. "No, I have no recollection of that."

"Oh!" Ty Lee chirps, setting the crown back down and skipping across the room. She sits down on the mattress. "Oh, we were on the beach and Mai and Zuko were off doing something they probably shouldn't have been and I was… feeding you? I think so. And you said I would be a good servant and I said, yes, thank you, and then I said I always wanted to be Fire Lady and you said I'd be a really good one."

Azula hates how cold and empty that memory makes her feel.

"You could have been Fire Lady if you chose me over Mai," Azula says. "You could be with me right now if you were smarter."

"I _am_ with you, Azula," Ty Lee whispers.

But Fire Lord Azula doubts that is true.


	8. Chapter 8

"Are you feeling better?" Azula asks Zuko. He stops struggling against the bonds that keep him down. The bed he woke in confused him; he was thrown away to rot and be tortured. Someone rescuing him seemed unlikely at best.

"I don't know what you want," he says.

"ZuZu, I rescued you. You could at least be kind." Azula keeps quiet, waiting for a reply that she does not receive. "No small talk? No thank yous? No apologies?"

"I don't exactly feel like talking to you," he snaps, very angry and bold for a boy who was dying a mere day ago.

So Azula threatens, "Then I can throw you right back where I found you."

Zuko looks her straight in the eye. "Go ahead," he says in complete and total earnest.

Azula knows he is serious about that and so she decides to take a different approach. She is about to try to convince him to speak to her when she sees someone sitting at the foot of his bed.

"What do you want from him?" asks Ty Lee.

"What do you even want from me?" Azula demands before she notices that her brother heard it. She turns to him and clears her throat. "What do you want from me? Perhaps we can flip this and see what direction it goes in."

Ty Lee laughs. Azula glares at her.

"You saved that really well, princess," Ty Lee says, an honest and sweet compliment. Azula despises her for giving it at such a serious time. "You always save it well."

Zuko interrupts the dialogue that he cannot see.

"Azula, I want you to tell me why you're here and why you would want to help me." He glances up at the restraint on his wrist. "If this is helping. For you it's helping, I guess."

"I just found you. I thought you were dead. Father told me you were." Azula bites her tongue but then sees the girl out of the corner of her eye. "He used that to convince me to do things that I do… that I do _not_ regret."

"You sound like you regret them," says Zuko.

"I didn't say that for your benefit," snaps Azula, clenching her fists.

Zuko's face shifts into a quizzical expression. "I'm the only person here."

Azula glowers at Ty Lee before telling her brother, "All I was saying is that I wonder why he would lie to me."

Zuko scoffs. She almost kills him. "Why wouldn't he? You're not _entirely_ perfect and special and wonderful to him. Emphasis on 'entirely' of course."

Azula says, "Did he have a good reason to—"

Zuko interrupts, "Keep me alive?"

" _No_ ," spits Azula. "Not tell me he was keeping you alive."

Zuko defiantly declares, "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."

Azula glares at him. "You could try to be kinder to your loving, generous sister."

He smiles at her. "If I had one of those, I'd be very kind to her."

Azula walks out of the room and slams the door behind her.

* * *

Azula stands alone in the throne room with an apparition sitting beneath the throne. No one holds an audience and Azula's guards stand vigilantly outside.

"Make me forget this," Azula snarls at her ghost. "You have ruined my life more than once and you should _make me forget this_. I have to rule an empire that despises me and my father lies to manipulate me. I do not get _manipulated_." Azula smashes a vase against the wall. It does not satisfy her enough. "I manipulate. _I_ should be Phoenix Queen and everyone else should choke on ashes."

"You can't let him have power over you," says Ty Lee quietly, gently biting her lower lip.

Azula punches the wall and scorches it. "Do not call me weak. I will kill you again."

"I'm not calling you weak. I'm just saying that he loves you, Azula, and the only thing that can make the stress of being a good empress disappear for a minute is letting people love you."

"He killed you," Azula snaps. She is startled by her own vehemence. "He has used me for a very long time and I have never wanted to harm him for it until now. We should kill him."

Ty Lee whispers, "Is that why? Is that why you're so mad he lied to you? Is it because he used it to justify what you did to me to you?"

"No," Azula exclaims, but the tone of her voice and comb flying from her hand to collide with the wall belies her. Azula turns to Ty Lee. "I mean it when I say no. I'm just angry because I don't like trusting people and then finding out they have betrayed me."

She glares at Ty Lee and enunciates every last word. The ghost looks confused and hurt, but Azula does not care. She invented Ty Lee as a hallucination and she does not have to care about the feelings of an imaginary girlfriend.

"I think you need romance," Ty Lee suggests. She sees the look in Azula's eyes and sees the need to clarify. "But not just sex because that's not enough to really make you forget for more than a few minutes. I mean a date. You and me. We never have had a date. Not just in this state but ever. I've never had a date with anybody and I know you haven't. It would be our first ever date."

Azula sighs. She has not taken a moment to enjoy herself since she was crowned Fire Lord. "That does not sound terrible, if you make it a good one. Somehow, that does not sound terrible."

"You wouldn't have to worry about what's real or not," Ty Lee says, standing up and walking to the Fire Lord. "Even if it's not real…you stop caring."

"If I am crazy I don't… I don't know if I care enough to change that," Azula says, calming by impressive margins.

Ty Lee coos prettily, "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

Azula retorts cruelly, "It is probably the nicest thing I have ever said to anyone. I'm a bit mentally off, if you haven't noticed. My father lied to me. He never has lied to me before."

Ty Lee walks over to Azula as the Fire Lord falls into bed. Gently, Ty Lee sits beside her and runs her fingers through Azula's hair. She leans in close and whispers, "I love you. I love you and I'm sorry I ever hurt you."

Azula hits her hallucination for the first time and backhands something that feels very real. But then Ty Lee has disappeared as if she were never there in the first place. Azula stares at her hand and wonders how anything could feel so _human_ but not _be_ human.

Ty Lee disappears.

It does not surprise Azula.

* * *

The next day, Fire Lord Azula tries not to think about the fact that she is going on a date with a ghost. She thinks she might be insane but, then again, she already knows that.

Azula sits down outside in the stone garden. It remains as it was in Ba Sing Se many years ago, untouched by the Fire Nation influence. She sips a drink and stares at the fountain in the middle of the rock maze. No one will find her here, therefore, it is the best place to be with a ghost.

Ty Lee says as she sits down on the side of the fountain, "This isn't a bad date when we can't really go to restaurants. One day we should go to Ember Island. We could stay there and be together and sleep together and no one would find us."

Azula likes that idea. She wonders if she could pull it off, if she could escape Ba Sing Se and go hide on the gorgeous beach.

"We can do that eventually," Azula says, standing up and sitting on the edge of the fountain by her. She runs her hand through the water, feeling the cooling sensation. It almost pleases her as much as brushing her fingertips over fire.

"Sometimes you hate me but sometimes I think you love me," Ty Lee says softly, stroking a lock of Azula's hair. "I'm confused."

Fire Lord Azula leans in and kisses her. Her lips feel soft and taste perfect; she might be real. No, she cannot be real. Azula just no longer differentiates between hallucinations and reality.

When Ty Lee sets her hand on her neck, she decides that that might not be such a bad thing.

* * *

"I don't think that was a date, but I think you're being so amazing and perfect and wonderful and you've never been really nice to me before. Why are you really nice to me now?" Ty Lee whispers as soon as they reach Azula's bedroom.

"Because I have given up," Azula says, rubbing her thumb in a circle around the inside of Ty Lee's wrist. "I have given up and I want to enjoy the only enjoyable things I have. I reign over an entire empire and I need something—or someone—to make me forget that once in a while."

"I'm happy to do that," Ty Lee says.

If she were real, Azula might be less frustrated by that answer.

She ferociously takes her ghost to bed and embraces insanity.


	9. Chapter 9

Azula looks worse than she did when she first took over the Fire Nation. Her hair frazzled and awry, her silk clothes tied wrong with everyone too afraid to point out the mistake, her crown clasped tightly in her hand instead of on her head.

"Maybe—," she says to the room of officials. "Maybe we should just reduce their population to a more manageable size. Then they would stop giving us so much trouble. I am sick of terrorists in my city. The city _I_ conquered and claimed and the city _I_ allow them to live in."

Her advisors do not protest, but a few of them exchange concerned glances.

"Your eminence, we promised to live side by side with the Earth Kingdom. We offered them this generosity and I think it would be unwise to break our promise."

Azula impatiently explains to the old men and women, "We _only_ kill criminals. The people who have _accepted_ our promise may live."

Soft, warm lips kiss her neck. She flinches.

Ty Lee whispers to her, gently rubbing her thumb on Azula's wrist, "That's a good idea. Don't listen to them if they argue against you like dummies. Your father was too much of a coward but you're the bravest person in the whole wide world."

Azula turns to her advisors. "I am brave and my father was weak. We must be strong and take charge of this city before it takes charge of us."

No one argues.

Ty Lee winks at Azula.

* * *

That afternoon, while Azula paces in her sunny stone bedroom, Ty Lee appears.

"It would really be good for you to pull a comb through your hair once a week," says Ty Lee. "It's getting scary."

"Since your untimely death, you talk too much and about things you ought not to speak of," Azula snaps at her ghost.

Ty Lee smiles and shrugs. "It's one of the joys of being long dead, I guess."

"Long dead, long dead, long dead. Give me one reason why you might be around still."

Ty Lee claps her hands eagerly. "I _know_ the reason."

Azula laughs wickedly and rolls her eyes. "Really? You _know_ something? That is a rare treat."

Ignoring the insult, "Love outlasts death," says Ty Lee.

Azula shakes her head. "I would _love_ it if you would vanish for a while."

Ty Lee just sits down.

Azula ignores her for the rest of the day.

* * *

That night, while Zuko is half-asleep, Azula barges into his room.

"Who else is alive?" she screams. "Who else did he lie to me about?"

Her brother rubs his eyes groggily. He stares at her for what takes an _eternity_ in her eyes.

"I wouldn't know. I've been in a cell for a really long time," says Zuko. He glares and she advances on him, ready to just end his miserable existence.

She lifts a hand and someone grabs it very gently and delicately.

"You're smarter than this," says Ty Lee, batting her eyelashes. Azula clenches her jaw from anger but retracts her attempted attack on Zuko. "You're the most genius strategist in the whole world and I know you can see why he's important."

Azula sighs. To Zuko, it would appear that she glowers at thin air. He is not puzzled by it, however, because he has accepted the fact that she might be insane. She _is_ insane.

Fire Lord Azula asks her brother, "Why are you useful?"

"I don't think I'm useful," Zuko rasps, sitting up. She crosses her arms and slightly broadens her stance. "I don't even know why you're keeping me alive. I don't know why you didn't finish that strike. The past _my entire life_ has been agonizing at best. You'd be doing me a favor."

Azula smirks.

"Good. That is reason enough to make sure you live as long as possible."

She leaves as quickly as she came.

Zuko takes a few moments to be bewildered before he goes back to sleep.

* * *

At daybreak, Azula pinches the bridge of her nose as she looks in the mirror. Her ghost is right; she looks horrid but does not want to lift a finger to do anything about it. She does not know how to balance everything and does not know why she keeps trying.

"Ty Lee, since you are so all-knowing and therefore probably my own voice, tell me what would happen if I gave up. If I just laid down in bed until I died and let the world burn to ashes for all I cared. What would happen?" Azula whispers, lowering her hand from her face.

Ty Lee takes her sweet time responding.

"My uncle was a fisherman. Did you know that?" Ty Lee asks.

Azula rolls her eyes. The inside of her own mind is a bitch. "No."

"I told you a lot of times but I know you had better things to pay attention to," says Ty Lee. "Anyway, my uncle was a fisherman and we used to go visit him on the coast up north of Caldera. He would go fishing early every morning and I used to like to come with him. He would find stuff. Sometimes we found chunks of warships or just old stuff floating there like parts of nets. I made bracelets out of them and I never could get the bad smell of seaweed out of them."

"No wonder I never listened to you. This is boring."

"Sometimes we found dead bodies of swimmers. They would swim out from the cliffs just outside of the city and swim and swim out to sea until they drowned. They wanted to drown."

"Or they just got tired."

"Do you want to swim out to sea, Azula?"

Pretending to miss the point of the question, Azula says, "I don't want to die in water."

"How would you want to die?"

"Fighting for something."

"What?"

Azula throws an inkwell across the room. It shatters and the ink splashes all over. That does not satisfy her as it should.

"I have no _clue_!" screams Azula. "I have no idea what to fight for anymore! If you are so suddenly not a moron, tell me what I should!"

Ty Lee sits down, bowing her head. Her braid moves eerily. Azula catches _something_ about her that does not feel perfectly human. It gives the Fire Lord chills.

"People fight for a lot of things. Their country, their families, those they lost. But I guess those people are all fighting for the same thing. They're fighting for love," says Ty Lee.

"Shut up," Azula snaps, "and leave me be. I have no desire to entertain your fantasies about me _loving_ you."

Ty Lee nods and disappears without a trace.

Azula sighs from relief and sits down on the cold stone floor.

* * *

That day, "Leave me alone," snarls Azula in the throne room.

"I can't do that," Ty Lee whispers, averting her eyes from shame.

"You struggle with orders now, don't you? I am Fire Lord Azula and I demand you leave me alone forever!" Azula exclaims.

Ty Lee looks briefly saddened before plastering a smile on her face. "But I knew you before you were Fire Lord Azula."

"I was still by far your superior."

"I can't stop haunting you. It beats me too." Ty Lee turns up her palms. "You weren't complaining a few days ago."

Azula clenches her fists. "You are not a ghost. I don't even know if you're a hallucination anymore. This is a dream. Being here in this city is a dream, being Fire Lord is a dream, being alone and betrayed by the only people I dared to trust is a _dream_. Having all I thought I ever wanted right this moment is a _dream_. I am _dreaming_."

Hazily, Ty Lee smiles more brightly. "That sounds nice."

"Ty Lee," darkly whispers Azula as her dead love leans in for a kiss, "nightmares are dreams too."


	10. Chapter 10

Azula _knows_ she is insane, but she did not predict she was crazy enough to be playing mahjong with a hallucination early this morning. She gets up to go splash water on her face and then looks over her shoulder at the visage of a beautiful dead woman.

"Don't peek," Azula orders.

Ty Lee smiles. "I'm a hallucination, remember? I already know what the tiles are."

"Have you stopped insisting you are a ghost then?"

"No. But if you think I'm planning on peeking at your tiles, have you stopped insisting I'm imaginary?" Ty Lee teases, smiling. Azula does not criticize her for the boldness.

"I could spend my whole life dreaming, you know?" Azula says softly, studying the impeccably designed imaginary girl. "I never would have thought that before the war ended, but, now I don't think it would be so bad."

"You aren't dreaming, though, princess," Ty Lee says, tapping a tile with her fingers. The noise echoes so realistically even though Azula knows it is not there. "You're wide awake. What happens then? I wanna know because you know that I love you."

"You dare ask because you no longer fear me. There is nothing I can do to you worse than killing you," Azula states, shrugging. She revels in openly treating the act coldly for the first time.

"There are worse things," Ty Lee says, standing up and walking towards Azula. "You could forget me, but I don't know if you'll ever do that. You could continue flaunting being with other people just to spite me. _You_ could die too."

"If you… if I was dead and you were alive, would you miss me?" Azula asks, terrified by how much she shrinks while letting the thought invade her broken mind.

Ty Lee whispers, stroking Azula's arm soothingly, "Do you care about the answer? According to you I'm imaginary, Azula."

Azula snarls, batting Ty Lee's soft hand away. "Oh, come on. Stop being difficult."

Ty Lee pauses before she quietly replies, with unmistakable tears in her eyes, "If I were still alive and you were dead, I know that I would miss you."

When Azula begins to wretchedly sob, Ty Lee wisely disappears yet again.

* * *

Azula tires of a war that never seems to end. She sits on a throne and studies men and women in fancy uniforms that do not mean a thing. Her ghost lingers in the room and gives no indication that she will mention this morning when Azula broke while playing Mahjong.

She listens to their worthless opinions and opts to seize control of this fight on her own. If you want something done right, you must do it yourself.

"I think we need to make a direct strike," Azula orders, her expression keeping it clear that she will not put an ounce of thought into their idiotic ideas. "We cannot stand by and look weak in the eyes of the rebellion. They will suffer and despair at our hands."

"I love your confidence," brightly remarks the ghost sitting on the floor beside the throne. Azula tries her best not to look over her shoulder but cannot stop herself. She quickly fixes her attention back on those closest to her. In a business sense, not a personal sense, of course. Azula only has one friend and that friend is not real.

"That is confident, your majesty," says her Defense Minister and she starts to quietly laugh before she pulls herself together. They all look so _concerned_ about her. "We could pull it off if only we knew where to strike them."

"I have a few ideas about that," Azula says, leaning back in her throne. "I found a prisoner in the dungeons the other day. My brother. The rebels would _love_ having him, enough to be reckless, enough to give us some opportunity to find out how to hit them hard."

The eyes of her underlings light up eagerly. Azula smirks victoriously. Maybe Ozai was not a fool to hand off the city to her. _She_ will be better at stamping out the rebellion than anyone could ever be. Than even _he_ could ever be.

If only she were not crazy. Not being hung up on her ex-girlfriend's ghost would probably help her be an effective leader.

"And you will speak to the disgraced Prince Zuko?" asks her second in command.

"If you use a royal title in relation to that traitor again, I will hang you in front of the palace by the tendons in your heels," Azula calmly says, as if commenting on the weather.

"Yes, your highness," the man stammers, his eyes wide.

Ty Lee giggles. It _nearly_ feels like old times.

* * *

When Azula goes to visit Zuko during a break in agonizing audiences and meetings, her brother looks up at her, smoldering with anger, and asks, "Did you like killing her?"

"Who? You are going to have to be much more specific," Azula says, despite knowing exactly whom he refers to. Mai, of course.

"You know who I'm talking about," Zuko growls through his teeth.

"Maybe." Azula tilts her head to the side and thinks for a few moments, mostly to leave him hanging. "Yes. I think I did like killing her. It was cathartic."

"Both of them?"

"Yes." Azula never has lied so poorly. "No. Not both of them, but it's your fault that it happened. _You_ killed them both and you better learn to live with it."

"I didn't sign any execution orders."

"Our father made the suggestion and the arrangements. I thought prison was more appropriate."

"So you could break Ty Lee out and pretend to be her hero?"

Right on time, Azula's ghost touches her shoulder blade. Azula manages not to turn around.

"You used to lock me in rooms and closets just to listen to me scream," Ty Lee says softly, her hot breath beating against Azula's neck. "Then you'd come rescue me and pretend to be a hero. And I fell for it every time. I fell for it in purpose, because I wanted you to save me."

Azula reaches behind her to push Ty Lee away. Zuko looks baffled for a moment but she does not care what he thinks. She returns her gaze to her brother but still sees Ty Lee out of the corner of her eye.

"Do you miss her?" Zuko asks, giving Azula gooseflesh. She does not need this.

Azula coldly, more convincingly this time, insists, "No. Why would I miss her?"

"Are you gonna hide our relationship from your brother?" Ty Lee asks, batting her eyelashes and looking so damned pretty that Azula wants to kill her again.

"Because," Zuko says, unaware of the ghost or hallucination in the room, "I think she would miss you." His eyebrows shoot up and Azula has no idea why until she takes survey of her posture, body, thoughts and then touches her damp cheek.

"You must be suffocating on all of the dust in here. You have infinite time as a prisoner, why don't you bother cleaning?" _Something in my eye_. She almost laughs at how pitiful that attempt sounds. Azula needs to get back into the swing of lying about more than her affections for the girls that come and go one night at a time.

"Right," says Zuko, not poking the dragon. "But your insane girlfriend aside, since she'd love you even if you cut her fingers off… I think Mai would miss you too."

Azula turns around, walks out of the room and slams the door behind her.

She cries alone in these ancient halls.

* * *

Azula skips her meetings, claiming to be ill from the disgusting food and water in this horrible excuse for a city, and lies in her bed, staring at the ceiling. She has done this before in her life many times, consumed by her racing thoughts and feeling encapsulated in that prison of consciousness and brilliant intelligence that makes her analyze every breath she takes.

Someone sits down on her bed and touches her hand. She lets Ty Lee do it because she does not have the willpower to force her away.

"Don't cry, please," Ty Lee whispers, sounding so genuine that Azula wants to scream and claw her face. "It hurts me so much when I can't make you happy all the time."

"It is _all your fault_ ," Azula hisses, letting tears fall. The imaginary can witness weakness. She does not care what this fragment of a memory sees.

"You don't know what'll come tomorrow. That's the best I can do, your highness," Ty Lee says gently, caressing Azula's face. The Fire Lord still does not move.

"You are being far too bold," Azula snaps and Ty Lee recoils and makes herself look small.

"Your plans to attack the rebels are so good. You're the best Fire Lord ever," Ty Lee says.

"I _know that_. This has _nothing_ to do with my capability as a ruler!" Azula exclaims, not giving a damn who hears. All grovel before her no matter what she screams in the night.

"You feel like you have blood on your hands, don't you?"'

"So do you. We were soldiers. We were soldiers and so we killed."

"That's different. Enemy soldiers and leaders and whoever else we killed were different than executing people you didn't…" Ty Lee breathes in deeply and edges slightly away from Azula. "Not that you didn't. There just wasn't a lot of closure for you. You needed it and now you'll never get it."

"Go away," Azula chokes, knowing full well that Ty Lee rarely obeys that order.

"I still love you," Ty Lee says. "I'll always love you, just like Zuko said."

"Your love does not matter to me. I have all I ever wanted."

"If I may protest, your majesty, I don't think the things you wanted are what you have," Ty Lee says, now hesitantly touching Azula's hair. She breathes a sigh of relief when the Fire Lord allows it. It makes her seem more real, which kills Azula.

"I told you I have what I wanted, so shut up if you know what's good for you," Azula snaps, but then her voice weakens slightly. "I want you to go away. I want to forget you. Make me forget you before I—I—I…" She does not know how to threaten a dead girl.

"It's nice to live in your world," Ty Lee comments, which Azula does not understand. "If you forgot me, I don't think I'd have that anymore. I'm here whenever you need me. Isn't that important? I'm a ghost. I'm someone who will always be on your side and always be there and never do anything against you or to hurt you. You'll never be lonely."

Azula closes her eyes for a long while. Ty Lee sits beside her while she sleeps.

She remains there when Azula wakes up.

* * *

In the morning, Azula wakes early and skips her firebending to go check in on Zuko. She still formulates the different ways she could use him as leverage to catch the rebels. Every idea would work, but many of them fail once she thinks far enough ahead.

She needs to form some kind of bond with Zuko, which makes her sick. It would be easier to just keep tormenting him until the end of time. Yet, she knows they have only one thing—or two, if you will—that bind them together.

Two people.

"I thought about what you said," Azula says as she walks inside, deciding to take an approach she does not like but thinks might work. "It is an interesting theory that I might miss them."

"An interesting theory?" Zuko rolls his eyes. "I bet you wish they were never born. It would've been better for both of us, huh?"

"It would cause less pain, certainly," Azula says. "I once read that it is much darker and colder when a flame goes out than if it never burned."

"Not a bad one." Zuko shrugs.

They feel like siblings for a few fleeting moments and it makes them both extremely uncomfortable. The brother and sister were born to be enemies and breaking that mold never feels very good to either.

"I miss them both," Azula says. "Are you satisfied with that answer?"

"Yeah. Creepy as it is, I like you when you're honest," Zuko says.

"It might be best if you do not like me as we proceed. Your future is bleak."

"Always has been. I'm used to it." He laughs. She laughs. Azula stops first and stiffens.

She regally orders, "I have a request, brother."

He does not like the sound of it already.


	11. Chapter 11

**_AN:_** _As I've probably said way too much, this is based on Gaius and Caprica from Battlestar Galactica. The plot with Helo and Athena's baby is integral inspiration for this story, and I'm trying to do that genius justice. The reason I say this is because I worry the end of this chapter will be a little too weird and I want to reassure you guys that it has a purpose and it will come into play._

* * *

Humming a bittersweet tune to herself, Azula slowly twists her soaking hair into the shape of a spiraling seashell. Not long ago, she had a phalanx of servants to bathe her in jasmine scented water. Countless candles burn in her room, which should be soothing but simply is not.

She gazes at herself in the mirror and waits for someone nonexistent to appear behind her in the reflection. No one does. No ghost girlfriend.

Only when she wants to be alone.

If it is all in her head, as she suspects, maybe she can convince herself she wants to be alone. But can a person trick their own mind? She is fairly certain that minds play tricks on people, not the other way around.

Zuko denied her simple request. She always gets what she wants and when she does not, well, she never reacts very rationally. Therefore, she locked him back in the dungeon.

Who could blame her?

She has every right. She is _Fire Lord_ , for the sake of Agni.

She has every right. She is Fire Lord. She has every right.

"Do you?" asks her ghost, suddenly appearing behind her, sitting on the foot of the bed, her eerie reflection in full view. Fire Lord Azula notices not for the first time that Ty Lee does not wear the clothes she was in when she died; she wears what she did when Azula lost her. At the Boiling Rock. Maybe that is more evidence pointing towards Ty Lee being a hallucination and not a ghost. A demon and not an angel. But a haunting either way.

Still, haunting aside, Azula tries not to look too pleased that Ty Lee appeared. Then it suddenly crushes her that, unless ghosts can read minds, this might as well be confirmation that she is purely imaginary.

"Do I what?" Azula snaps, touching up her hair and turning around to face her sexy visitant. Ty Lee flutters her eyelashes and takes a deep breath that makes Azula's eyes follow the heave of her chest.

Ty Lee asks in her prettiest of voices, "Do you have every right?"

Azula scowls. Imaginary. Her ghost is imaginary. "I said nothing of the sort."

Ty Lee looks puzzled for a moment, which Azula does not quite understand until her ghost explains, "Yes, you did. You stopped doing your hair for a minute and then you murmured, _I have every right_ about three times. I'm guessing it has to do with Zuko but maybe I'm wrong."

"I liked you better alive," snarls Azula.

"I liked me better alive too," replies Ty Lee, winking. Azula grinds her teeth.

"This is what I am talking about," she hisses. "The _gall._ No one speaks to me that way and…"

"And lives?" Ty Lee gently prods.

"Shut up. Be admiring or be nothing."

"I _am_ admiring. I think you're pretty much the most amazing person who there ever was, but it's because of that that I'm honest. You can't hurt me now and so I get to love you like you're supposed to love somebody you love."

"That made no sense."

"Basically, I've always loved you for as long as I can remember, but I never could be a real lover because I never could look out for you. I never could tell you when you were at the edge of a cliff. I could catch you if I tried, maybe, but I bet you wouldn't like it."

"If that's how you justify it," Azula coldly says, to which Ty Lee responds with a shrug. Azula's eyes smolder with rage at the defiance.

She does not know why she longs to be in the presence of this ghost.

She just doesn't.

"Tell me something about you I do not know," Azula orders.

Ty Lee swiftly obeys. "I used to sneak out—since nobody in my family would ever notice—and go to the downtown Caldera firebender fights just before game time and scalp two tickets. I'd end up right in front of the action, close enough to feel the flames and hear the cries of pain. I'd just let the energy of the crowd flow through me like an electric current and it was beautiful."

Azula asks, "Why did you get two tickets?"

Ty Lee smiles to herself, as if she has a secret. Azula narrows her eyes and waits for an answer.

"One for me and one for you," Ty Lee explains. "I knew I'd never get you to go. The fights were far too lowbrow for a princess, but I… I always liked to pretend you were there with me."

Azula thinks for a moment. Then she says, "I would have gone with you."

Ty Lee's eyes light up. She almost looks like her living self again. "Really?"

Azula frowns. "Maybe not. I suppose I never am certain of what I would have done. We are different people now."

"Yeah."

They both leave it at that.

* * *

Dressed beautifully, Azula walks to the dungeon to visit her brother. She hopes a night down there has made him reconsider his decline. He should know better, should he not? Zuko is not _entirely_ a fool.

She stands in front of the bars and knows she cannot immediately bring up what she asked about. She considers what could be a conversation starter, what could reel him in and leave him unable to ignore her. Better than blades and hot pokers and pliers. Much better. To intrigue him.

Azula purrs, "Do you ever have a relationship or a friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow… _alive_ and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still could start a forest fire?"

Zuko forces a sigh and looks at her like a condescending older brother. It makes her clench her teeth and briefly bare them like fangs. "You're always so unnecessarily silver tongued."

"Tell me," orders Azula, losing her patience already. "Tell me."

Zuko groans and admits, "Yeah. One person, and just one."

Azula averts her eyes. "Mai," she says, so softly, like a breath in a windstorm.

"No," says Zuko and Azula looks up in a flash. "I miss her every day, but I know it's finished because I can't bring her back. It's over, even if I don't forget her. Somebody else might be dead but I'll never know. Unless maybe you do."

"Perhaps I could sway you when it comes to my request from the other day."

"Doubtful." Zuko shakes his head.

Azula wants to burn his other eye. Burn his entire face, his entire body, until he is ashes, but she knows she must play this cautiously. Zuko has nothing left to lose. He is even worse than Azula's ghost, and she must deal with him cleverly if she will get what she wants.

"What if I tell you something very personal? Will that make you trust me enough to talk?"

Zuko looks intrigued. "Possibly."

"I used to sneak out—since no one would _really_ notice—and go to downtown Caldera firebender fights just before game time and scalp two tickets. I would end up right in front of the action—"

Ty Lee's voice whispers, as she leans against the bars of a nearby cell, "Please, please don't do this. I'm begging you to stop."

Azula continues, "—close enough to feel the flames and hear the cries of pain—"

Ty Lee pleads, " _Azula_ , why are you doing this to m—?"

Azula continues, undeterred, "—I would just stand there and let the energy of the crowd flow through me like an electric current and it was beautiful."

Ty Lee blinks back tears as she whispers, "You never change, do—?"

"Why did you buy two tickets?" Zuko asks.

Azula pauses, feigning a wistful expression. After leaving him hanging long enough, she turns back to her brother. "One for me and one for the girl I loved, but was too afraid to tell. She would go with me if I asked. In an instant, but I thought it was beneath me. But you know the embarrassing part? I would sometimes pretend she was there with me."

Zuko stands in silence for a few beats.

"That is easily the saddest thing you have ever said," he comments, furrowing his brow.

Azula smoothly purrs, "Which is why I despise honesty."

" _Honesty_." Ty Lee huffs. Azula shoots her a glare that makes her avert her eyes and hang her head. Good.

"Fine," says Zuko. "Maybe I'll give you a short, but I have one more question. You need to tell me something about my heartworm. Did you kill her?"

"Kill who?" Azula asks, truly puzzled.

"Katara," Zuko whispers, saying her name as if it is dangerous.

"I thought you were there," Azula says, thinking back to that night, that fight, one she came within inches of losing. She remembers very little of what happened after it. The aftermath of Sozin's Comet was... wild, and she was insane. More so than she is now, talking to an imaginary dead friend.

Zuko reminds her, "Struck by lightning, unconscious, very quickly captured and imprisoned by our father."

"Then I have no idea." Azula turns up a palm and shrugs.

Zuko says, "Maybe he took her prisoner too. Find her, and I'll help you."

"You are in no position to try to bargain with me."

"I think that maybe I am."

"Because I can sympathize with your miserable plight, and I am curious myself, I shall look into the matter, but if I cannot retrieve her or she is dead, I have other ways of making you agree."

"I don't doubt it," Zuko says, so casual in the face of his horrible fate.

Azula walks away, leaving him and her ghost behind.

* * *

Azula falls asleep alone and cold. Her ghost does not return to her after the conversation in the dungeon, and did not even watch during the audiences of the day. Azula only can sleep by the saving grace of being exhausted. Exhausted by the war and the rebels, mostly.

Her dream is clearer than any she has ever had. Many of her nightmares have been vivid, but nothing like this. She truly feels like she is walking through the palace of Ba Sing Se. Something draws her down to the dungeon, and there, in a cell, stands her ghost.

"Come out of there," Azula orders, walking up to the bars. She sees Ty Lee holding something, something coated in ratty red fabric. "Just drop that and come with me. You can't leave me alone. You aren't allowed to do that."

Ty Lee says nothing about being a ghost. Nothing about being untouchable. Nothing.

She stands and walks to Azula, and to her horror, she sees what is in her arms. Blue eyes, tufts of shimmering black hair.

"She's our baby. Kya," Ty Lee whispers, sounding far too proud.

Azula ignores the ridiculous name and the ridiculous situation and the ridiculous dead girl and says sharply, "That is impossible for a number of reasons."

"She's _our baby_ ," Ty Lee repeats, trying and failing to lock eyes with Azula.

"Should I list them? One, you are dead. Two, we are both women—"

"Just look. Please look into her eyes," Ty Lee begs, her lips slightly upturned in a hopeful smile.

Azula purses her lips and keeps looking away until her curiosity gets the better of her.

"Since this is obviously a dream," she justifies, "I suppose I can tolerate the madness for a moment."

"Isn't she beautiful?" Ty Lee whispers, batting her eyelashes and dragging Azula into the alert cobalt eyes of the little baby.

Azula says, "Yes," and she wakes in her cold dark room, still murmuring the word to herself.

 _Yes, yes, yes._


	12. Chapter 12

Azula sits, combing her hair in the mirror while her ghost watches from the bed, softly smiling at her girlfriend. The Fire Lord stayed awake the entire night thinking about her strange dream, and Zuko's not-so-cryptic comments about the person other than Mai he loved.

"I want to find the water girl. The one I hate," says Azula to her ghost.

"Do you think I can help you?" asks Ty Lee, pivoting to face the Fire Lord. "I don't know if I can. I'm locked up in your head. Not that it's so bad. I want to help you. I love you."

"Would you stop saying that?" snaps Azula.

"I guess." Ty Lee studies the palms of her hands. Azula bitterly stares at her.

"You found Zuko."

"The water girl isn't Zuko."

"How is it so different?"

"I don't feel it. I had a feeling about him, y'know?"

"No. I do not know. None of this makes sense."

"I agree. I mean, I pretty much always agree—"

"You could agree more often. That is why… that is why you are not real. The real you would be entirely supportive of me and encourage all my endeavors."

"Do you think you have such a lack of a conscience that you need it to be somebody else telling you what's right or wrong?"

Azula scowls. "Something like that. Right and wrong are social concepts that have no true meaning beyond comforting—"

"You are _riddled_ with guilt, my love."

Azula scoffs. "Guilt is what unintelligent people claim to have when they run out of excuses for their actions."

"I think you need things to be that way. I think you need to call good and evil pretend and say that guilt is just for people who can't make up better lies. If you admitted that maybe there's a reason so many people believe in those thi—"

Azula smashes her fist into the mirror. " _Shut_ up. I am done with you."

Ty Lee averts her eyes.

* * *

Ty Lee sits across from Azula, at the foot of her bed like a cat. Azula lies awake again, trying to theorize about the water girl. She knows she should ask her father, but she does not know how she could justify it to him, especially if he does not have her.

And Ty Lee suddenly asks, "Tell me you love me. Please."

Azula sighs and sits up, squinting in the darkness. "No. I can't."

"Then tell me you hate me. Please."

"I want to tell you I hate you, but that would be a lie."

"You're a liar. Probably history's most famous liar."

"I don't see a point in lying to you. It does not serve me."

"You lied to me when I was alive."

"I think the last part of that sentence sums up why I do not lie to you now."

"Oh. I guess that's another perk of being long dead."

"Hm. I didn't know there were any. You died quite terribly and tragically. I would be far more bitter about it if I were you."

"I don't know. Dying by the hand of someone you're in love with is kinda hot."

"Are you implying something?"

"I don't know. Am I?"

Azula stands up and walks away to reign as Fire Lord in this dreadful, cold city.

* * *

Azula sits in the middle of an extremely boring meeting about the rebels. She _knows_ her father wanted her to deal with this so he would not have to. What a lovely assignment.

Her ghost interrupts Commander Xen's tiring and vapid speech with, "So, if you won't lie to me, will you tell me if I'm pretty? Am I almost as pretty as you?"

"That question is petty and pathetic," says Azula before turning around and realizing she is in the middle of an important meeting. "Commander Xen. I don't want to hear anything like that again."

Ty Lee says sweetly, "I'm petty and pathetic, princess."

"I am not a _princess_ ," Azula snarls before remembering again. "Commander Xen. I won't be so easily fooled by double talk. I'm not a naivete, after all. I conquered this city."

"Have you always been so good at multitasking? I'm really impressed!" chirps Ty Lee.

"Yes, I always have," Azula says to Ty Lee before turning to Xen. "I always have had confidence in the Fire Nation's prowess. Do not doubt my support of my nation."

"I—yes, yes, your highness," says Xen.

"This meeting is over. I am tired of looking at you," Azula says. "You could stand to run a comb through your hair once a week."

Azula begins to walk away when she hears Xen making a comment to Li.

"She's a strange one, isn't she?" remarks the commander.

Azula pivots on her heel. "What was that?"

"Nothing, your highness," Xen breathlessly replies.

"That's what I thought," purrs Fire Lord Azula.

Ty Lee giggles gleefully. "I love it when you make people panic."

"I do too," replies Azula.

A girl and her ghost girlfriend stride away side by side.

* * *

After three weeks, Azula at last hears good news.

"We have the waterbender. Your father released her to your custody."

Azula walks forward and looks at the girl bound in restraints dreamt up by the engineers of Azulon's era. They used them to wipe out a weak, inferior race.

"Hello, Katara," says Azula. "Welcome to my home." Katara just snarls at her. Azula refuses to recoil, although that is her first instinct. "So rude. I am sure my accommodations will be kinder than those of my father."

Katara laughs. Azula scowls.

"You are so much crueler than him."

"So you think. You will find I care very little about your opinion. Take her to the dungeon… where they kept Zuko."

Her cobalt eyes widen.

Azula turns around so that no one sees her victorious smirk.

* * *

Azula stands outside of the water girl's cell. She mentally practices what she will say, what might be the best way to draw her in. Zuko already began believing her pretty lies about Mai and Ty Lee. She just needs to know what will make Katara as good as hers.

Finally, she settles on fake humbleness. It works sometimes.

She strides in and has the guards lock the door behind her.

"I don't know what to say."

"You brought me here. It was on your orders. You want something."

"I am trying to shape my brother into… someone usable. I think you are precisely what he needs to start… trusting me."

"Zuko would trust you the day the poles melt and the Fire Nation freezes over."

Azula kneels down in front of her. "I think you underestimate my powers of persuasion, and my relationship with my brother. I have known him far longer than you have. Yet, somehow, I think he loves you deeply and dearly."

"Then let me see him. Let me stay with him."

"I am not going to be that easy to befriend, water girl. But maybe we could be friends. Who knows? Perhaps the poles will melt and the Fire Nation will freeze over."

"Maybe."

"Now, what am I going to do with you?"

"Put me with him. I told you."

Ty Lee leans in close and whispers in Azula's ear, "You could sleep with her. That's your signature move these days, isn't it?"

"No!" snaps Azula, and then she turns to Katara. "No, I can't put you together with him. I would be an idiot to do that."

"Maybe." Katara shrugs. "Don't you have more confidence in yourself than that?"

Azula laughs, hoping to knock the waterbender down a level or two. It does not work.

"Listen, I can think of only one reason you would be interested in him, and that is to use him for your own ends. Maybe, though, I could let you see him… if you love him enough."

"I don't love him. I care about him. He earned my respect and friendship. You never will."

"I… didn't love someone too," says Azula, thinking of her successful fight night sob story for ZuZu. "And I wasted any chance I ever had with her. Are you going to make the same mistakes as I did?"

"I didn't think you thought you could make any _mistakes_."

"Because I usually don't." Azula pauses for dramatic effect and then averts her artificially misty eyes. "But I wish I could have seen her one last time," Azula says, glancing up at the ghost watching her with wide, glittering eyes. In truth, she wishes she could stop seeing her.

"That isn't… enough."

Azula dives right into her scheme and conjures the crocodile tears. She bites them back as subtly as possible, while still giving a certain dramatic effect.

"I just miss her so much," says Azula, uncertain if she is lying or not. She lets her lips linger close to Katara's. Ty Lee watches disdainfully. "Sometimes, I just wish I had someone. Have you been wishing for him?"

"Yes," says Katara.

"It's hard, isn't it? To be so alone in a world like this." Azula leans closer and closer.

Katara moves back and Azula purses her lips. She was beginning to think she might succeed; what a shame.

"There's a difference. You killed her. You. Killed. Her. I did everything I could to protect Zuko, even though I hated him once."

"I never specified who I was talking about."

"It's obvious," says Katara. " _Really_ obvious. The circus girl."

Bitterly and wordlessly, Fire Lord Azula stands and bangs twice on the door for the guards. "We're done here. I'll be back tomorrow to see if you reconsidered my offer."

As soon as Azula steps outside, her ghost comments, "I think you had an effect."

Azula only smirks in her direction.

She knows that she did; the waterbender is far from as impenetrable and strong as she believes herself to be.

Compassion. The waterbender has too much compassion and it will lead her to her end.

* * *

Azula waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Finally, after letting Katara enjoy the _luxury_ of the dungeons, Azula returns. She enters, has the door locked behind her, and stands still, arms crossed.

She knows she will do her best not uttering a word.

And, lo and behold, it works.

"I… I reconsidered," says Katara. "It's worth it to see him… one last time. I just want to make sure he's okay, and I trust myself enough to know I'm not on your side."

"Not yet, at least," purrs Azula.

She smirks at her ghost.

Ty Lee smiles back.

Katara is allowed to see Zuko.

Zuko is allowed to see Katara.

* * *

Cold months of rebellion attacks and tiring war meetings pass.

Fire Lord Azula finds little use for her prisoners and less use for her ghost. She just waits for something better to happen. Perhaps another strange dream. Instead, she just tries to strike back against the people her father ordered her to fight.

Azula goes through the same routine of gradually being sucked into her ghost further and further. She might as well be a captive of Ty Lee's conscious at this point, but she pretends that she can resist.

She avoids Zuko. Avoids the water girl.

Azula only waits, because that is all she _can_ do while she fights the rebellion.

It happens. Azula is admittedly quite shocked. She did not expect anything to come of following her ghost and dream's advice. She expected to just keep drifting through the world, pretending to care about the Fire Nation's regime and sleeping with randoms.

The palace healer decides he ought to step in to have an audience with the Fire Lord and says quite confidently, "The prisoner is pregnant. The waterbender."

Azula turns to Ty Lee. "Is that what you meant?"

"Your—your highness?" he stammers.

Azula quickly switches conversations and corrects herself. "Is that what you mean to tell me? That she's pregnant? You act so cavalier and calm about this."

"I don't—I don't want to offend you, your highness."

Ty Lee interjects, "She doesn't want to end up executed, I bet. But you don't need a translation; you're kinda the smartest person I know."

"Of course," says Azula to Ty Lee, then she hastily turns to Xen, "Commander Xen. Of course you don't want to offend me. No one remotely intelligent would."

"Right," he says nervously.

"I want to see her," Azula demands.

"Of course, your highness."

Azula gazes at her ghost for several long moments before she steps down from her throne.


End file.
